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The Story of Decline

Leave a Comment / Humanity is Beautiful / By Peter Schulte / August 13, 2020 August 31, 2020

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Jan 14 2020February 21, 2021

Prologue

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Jan 20 2020August 27, 2020

The world is on fire

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Jan 20 2020September 15, 2020

Outrage and despair

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Table of Contents

Prologue (available to everyone)
Acknowledgments

Part 1: Humanity’s Decline

The world is on fire
Outrage and despair
“Nowadays”
Time is a flat circle
A disease
Antinatalism
The Story of Decline
The Story of Progress
The Dark Ages
The Enlightenment
Our vast global communications network
Negativity bias
Bubbles
Our fuel to drive change
My story of outrage and despair
The Sacred Valley
A new story

Part 2: Humanity’s Beginnings

The dawn of humanity
The mythicist’s story
The creationist’s story
The anthropologist’s story
Proto-humans
“Modern” humans
Symbols
Abstractions
What is genius?
The first flower
San Sebastian
The savannas
What is humanity?
Prometheus
The first fire

Part 3: Humanity’s Inventions

A child’s expanding mind
An adult’s expanding mind
Piaget’s theory of child development
Kegan’s theory of adult development
Subject-Object
“People never really change”
Humanity’s evolving mind
Instinct
Inventions of the mind
Challenge #1: Isolation
Value #1: Belonging
Invention #1: Story
Challenge #2: Conformity
Value #2: Glory

Part 4: Humanity’s Victoria

Bittersweet
The horizon slipping away
Razor blades in Halloween cookies

Part 5: Humanity’s Shame

Part 6: Humanity’s Futures

Epilogue

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